Sing-a-long-a-blog-along

We are finally, finally  at the end of March. Whew. That was a long one. Do you remember March 1st? Sheesh. That weekend, I saw two films at the cinema, went to the gym, went to multiple pubs and watched a Premier League game on TV with a packed-out stadium. This has not been a month, it has been an epoch. May it die a sad death. With the titanic garbage fire of a month behind us, today's song of the day is a big fat March 2020 mood. 'Trouble Every Day' is the title track from She Drew the Gun's 2019 EP, and it's a very nice reminder that, before COVID-19 was a whisper in the air of literal Hell itself, we were dealing with a very full plate of worldwide problems anyway. There's an Extinction Rebellion reference in there. Remember global warming? I don't mean to say that every day, like the song says, is just another rotten mess. Some nice things have improbably come out of this month, like Animal Crossing , or all the weird and creative and nice ways th

It has come to my attention that, for a blog about music with 'song' in the title, I have spent more time navel-gazing about life in the time in corona than I have actually discussing music. Sorry about that. We're working out stuff on the fly here. In the interests of talking more about music, I have picked a good song by a good artist, unlike all the other days. That good artist is Jason Isbell, who you may possibly know as the accidental instigator of the "30-50 feral hogs" meme from last year. I could spend more time reminiscing about the pure joy of Feral Hogs Day, but this song is, I promise, not about the feral hogs. It was between two songs from Isbell's 2015 album Something More Than Free , 'Children of Children' and '24 Frames'. Using science (I made a Twitter poll called which called them "that one" and "the other one", which got four votes), I picked out '24 Frames', which is, well, just a very good s

Double digits! We're on double digit days. That feels good. And it ought to, I guess, since we're going to be in double digits for a while.  Gotta bottle some of this excitement for Day 85, or something, I suppose. I remember gigs. Do you remember gigs? I know, they seem like nightmares in corona-world - giant mass gatherings in which personal space is smashed to smithereens upon a wave of sweat and beer. Of all the stuff that's been yoinked away at in the name of flattening the curve, the return of gigs seems like the furthest one in the future. It's going to be a hot minute before the powers that be allow that kind of Petri dish again. In the meantime, though, there are live performances. Like everything right now, they are a substitute for the real thing that is less personal and far more online. Yet they're still as good a reminder as you're going to get of the unique thrill of being caught in something far bigger than yourself at a gig - and, in a selec

As much as I promised myself this blog would be the lowest stakes possible on a creative level, it is somewhat hard to take things entirely non-seriously. I rationally know that heavenly inspiration in the form of song will not strike particularly often, but I weirdly find myself disappointed every time I don't feel like I have been whispered to and must impart that song to others on this blog. Sometimes, or, realistically, quite often, it is easy to feel entirely drained of that inspiration. Sometimes it is enough just to rifle through the cupboards of the brain, offer whatever's covered in the least dust and ask "will this do?". Okay, I'm speaking generally. I will make it more specific, and honest: today, I am entirely drained of inspiration. Like everybody, I am torn at the moment between the impulse to do everything that I have ever held back on, and the impulse to curl up beneath my weighted blanket and listen to the same five songs over and over. Toda

Hey, I finally put an expiry date on this thing. I started out thinking - let's give it a week, see if we're still here. It's a week later, and the extremely mild success that I've had with this (I've written it, and more than one person, although less than ten, have read it a day) has disproportionately gone to my head. Now I am planning, in a fit of over-ambition, to make this blog run for 500 days and 500 songs. I don't know, 500 is a nice number. If it was good enough for the Proclaimers... Anyhow, apparently this means that this will end on 2nd August 2021. Good fricking lord. We're really in it now. Meanwhile, in Actual Songs: I feel that I have been letting the side down with regards to relaxed songs. It's a stressful time, and it can't be all Garbage this and Pink Floyd that. One of the main functions of music is to soothe, and all, so with that in mind, here's one of my chilled-out favourites: 'One Day', from Sharon Van Ett

Happy birthday to me. Yeah, quarantine-birthdays aren't the best. I got a cinema voucher I can't use for months (Mum and Dad, I appreciate the gift, I swear, it's just symbolic), and I'm still laughing at the fact that two weeks ago I thought I might still be able to go into London for dinner. Hey, in another life, I was seeing Sam Fender and Gang of Youths at Ally Pally tonight. Ah, well. Such is corona life. Still, why complain about the present? The past is alright. For today's song, entirely unrelated to anything birthday-centric, I have dipped into the mists of time and brought from them a song with weird-ass significance. 'Control', from Garbage's 2012 album Not Your Kind of People , is just another late-game pop-punk effort for most. Not so for me. For me, this is special. Why is it special? Because, of course, it was used in the launch trailer for The Amazing Spider-Man 's tie-in game. I believe it was a trendy song at the time. I see

Today's song, 'Dreams', is from The Cranberries' 1992 album Everyone Else is Doing It, So Why  Can't We ? It's a great song! It's pleasingly timeless and strikes a nice boundary between neat guitar riffs and melancholia. Honestly, though, I am writing about 'Dreams' as an excuse to talk about where I heard it from. Or rather, where I heard the Cantonese cover - Wong Kar-wai's 1994 film Chungking Express . Yeah, I know, la-di-dah, he's into foreign films. I'm an English student who loves cappuccinos and wants to get into creative writing. You might as own the stereotype. I'd caught a couple of Wong's other films on MUBI recently, and I know a little of what to expect from him: a great soundtrack, Tony Leung looking pained, lots of very bright red and blue, a shit ton of yearning. But Chungking is the first one I properly had fun with. It's quirky, and witty, and just a little bit weird. There's a drug deal revenge subpl

Tell you what. It is really beginning to annoy me that I made Day 1 of this thing on the 20th. The days and dates almost line up, but they're one off. I know this is the smallest concern possible, but surely my past self could have realised this. Anyway, today in music, we're going fully on the nose. How are we doing in the United Kingdom? I have never been under lockdown before and it is my guess that neither have you. The idea of exercise cops rugby tackling me on my secret second run of the day chills me to the bone. Also, the idea of Boris Johnson wielding unlimited and indefinite influence over civil liberties, but that's secondary. Aside from my fear of the jogging police, I do also miss people. I thought I liked my personal space, but it turns out that you don't know what being within 2 metres of another human being outside of your family really is before it's gone. Oh, to have to navigate my way sideways through a crowded pub and wait 20 minutes to be se

I'm sorry! I keep picking songs and then suddenly I realise that their song titles really inappropriate for the current situation. I'm going to try and do better in the future, rather than tripping over and finding a B-side by some 2010s indie rock band called 'No Vaccine For Eighteen Months' or something. Anyway, we're here now. 'Funeral Beds' (seriously, ouch), from The Districts' 2013 album Telephone. The Districts are one of those pleasant indie rock bands who have a few catchy songs floating about in my rotation, but this song, a much earlier work than most of their popular stuff, is an honestly striking cut above. It's both serene and frantic, cathartic and oddly soothing. Most bands don't have a song this good, so I'm not going to complain that this is a pretty big outlier for The Districts. It's also one of those songs that I heard, and added to a playlist ages ago, but took me a long time to actually, properly listen to it

I feel like there's a theme setting in here with these daily songs. In times of terrifying global pandemics, picking out new, artsy tunes seems like a chore. Who wants to be challenged in that way, when the entire world is one great big challenge anyway? So here we are, with three comfort food songs on the bounce. This one's actually a band new to me - Shake Shake Go, an indie-pop band whose name sounds an awful lot like a Black Keys song. 'We Are Now' is the perfect kind of ear-soothing poptimism to spice up those long days spent almost entirely indoors, and those unseasonably cold spring nights. I think that solid, pleasant music like this has a place in the world, even if it's destined for a scathing Pitchfork review and the scepticism of indie kid Redditors. It's like how 'Left Hand Free' is absolutely nowhere near Alt-J's best song, but, secretly, in spite of its lack of musical and lyrical complexity, I think that it's pretty catc

I realise that picking a song called 'Death' isn't that escapist a thing to do right now. Sorry. 'Death' isn't really about death, the concept, though. It's, surprisingly, a very compelling and detailed portrait of what it's like to experience in-flight turbulence. As somebody who has always hated flying, I can truly relate to this - turbulence is a grim reminder that you're in a floating metal tube with tens of thousands of feet to fall. There's no better place to confront your own mortality and the fragility of human life than in EasyJet economy class, and I feel like 'Death' gets that. I do realise that flying is also a thing that we can't do now. Sorry. It's also just a really great song. To Lose My Life... is one of those late 2000s/early 2010s lightning in a bottle records from otherwise fairly unremarkable indie bands, where inspiration seems to just keep on coming, and 'Death', which, like the best roc

Make me dance, I want to surrender... Confession. This is day one of this whole project thing, and you'd think I'd be bursting with ideas.  Nope. I have been song-blocked the entire day. Social isolation is not good for musical inspiration. Instead of putting pressure on myself to Be Original, I'm trying to start simple. Rather than trying to capture my day perfectly in song, I'm picking one that's always, in some shape or form, rattling about the brain. So, Belle and Sebastian. For me, they're childhood in a nutshell: a thousand half-remembered memories of sitting in cars and letting Mum and Dad's iPod classic roll. I found my way back to them about a year ago, and was staggered by just how warm and familiar their music felt. Apparently a large, dormant part of my brain was just playing Belle and Sebastian radio on a loop, waiting to be discovered again. And central to that is 'I Didn't See It Coming', track one of their 2010 album, Writ

Hey there. This is a concept blog. Like all concept blogs, it is more ambitious than reality can hope to match. But, as nobody has said, for good reason, it's the ambition that counts. What is this blog, helpfully titled 'Sing-a-long-A-Blog-A-Long' (catchy!)? It is... a song diary? A music journal? A coping mechanism? A cry for help? Kidding, it's all four, especially the latter. COVID-19 has us all howling into the void, anyway. My genuine hope - and heck knows if this will last even a week, is to post here every single day. Not anything wordy - about 100ish words, or whatever I can muster, on a song that just feels right for the day. Maybe this will be a diary-like thing,  or maybe some kind of weird experiment in music critique. Maybe it will last three days. But hey. It's Coronaworld, and if there was ever a time to start an over-ambitious concept like this, now is the time. It may not still be the time. I'm going to start tomorrow (he says). I don